Sinners In The Hands Of A Loving GodSýnishorn

Closing the Book on Vengeance

When Jesus preached in his hometown he read from the passage in Isaiah that foretells the work of the Spirit-anointed Messiah. But at the climactic moment in the Isaiah text—the line about God’s vengeance upon Israel’s Gentile enemies—Jesus rolled up the scroll and announced, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Isaiah 61:1–2, Luke 4:16–30) Jesus had endorsed Isaiah’s vision of a Messiah who would heal the sick, liberate the captives, and preach good news to the poor, but he closed the book on vengeance.

Did Jesus really close the book on vengeance? Maybe Jesus’ omission of the line about vengeance on Gentiles was merely an oversight. But it wasn’t an oversight. We can be sure of that because of what Jesus does next as he recalls two of the most subversive stories in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus first tells the story of how a Gentile widow was provided for during a famine by the prophet Elijah. (1 Kings 17:1–16) Jesus makes the point explicit by saying, “There were many widows in Israel…and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon.” Then Jesus tells the even more subversive of story of the prophet Elisha healing Naaman, the general of Israel’s arch-enemy Syria. (2 Kings 5:1–14) He then pounds the point home by saying, “There were many lepers in Israel…and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

Jesus refused to read Isaiah’s vision of vengeance, just as he would refuse to be a violent, vengeful Messiah. And that ignited the rage of the crowd. It’s amazing just how angry some people can become if you try to take away their religion of revenge. As long as Jesus announced that it was the time of God’s favor, the crowd spoke well of him. But as soon as he made it clear that God’s favor is for everyone, as soon as Jubilee was made inclusive and not exclusive, they tried to throw him off a cliff.

Until we are captivated by the radical mercy of God extended to all, we will cling to the texts of vengeance as cherished texts. We do this because we’re still addicted to revenge. But with the incident in the synagogue of Nazareth we learn that Jesus has closed the book on vengeance.